D Cornish - Factotum

"Fend off!" was the master's anxious shout between the loud metallic twang! of lambasts above loosing their venom-tipped barbs. "Back pull to the screw!"

With a great trembling like a groan, the packet ram changed screws and began to wind its way ponderously backward, its bow dropping sharply into the vinegar with an astounding thump. A fellow by number two gun began to scream all murder; something slick and greenish gray was reaching in from the gun port to drag the man a-sea. Number four gun detonated with a mighty sound, right into the sallow face of a bold pout-faced sea-monster seeking to clamber aboard.

Abruptly, Rossamund was seized on the thigh by a cold, merciless clutching, something slithering and gray. Completely surprised, he was already half out the port before he could catch a better grasp on the breech rope. In a flash, something took hold of his coat and Rossamund was hauled backward, head over end, left hand still clenching the rope. Upside down and hanging against the iron-plated side of the Widgeon, he had the briefest glimpse of the water boiling all about the packet ram as the smaller sea-nickers sought now to take out their rage on this new foe. Immediately below, cold black eyes beheld him hungrily, and wide pouting mouths slavered as the nadderers twisted in frustration at the unwilling strength resisting them. Powerful were the grips that had him, yet glaring down at the vile sea-nickers Rossamund held fast to the cable and would not let go. In a moment of shocked recognition the beasts yielded a little, as if they realized something peculiar in the nature of their prey. In that hesitation, Rossamund heaved against them, even as Europe thrust through the port, face distorted with fury, striking down savagely with a metal worm and a flash of arcing into the dial of one of the beasts. The ravenous clenching slackened, and Rossamund drew himself inward with a prodigious jerk, to land face-first and panting in fright on the deck.

"Watch your step, little man," the fulgar insisted mildly. "I do not want you knocked on the head before we have properly begun."

"Almost lost ye," Fransitart murmured. The ex-dormitory master helped Rossamund to stand.

The thumping of guns could be heard now, getting closer, coming from some other vessel. Through the ports Rossamund saw a larger ram, a drag-mauler perhaps, cutting across the retreating bow of the Widgeon, the blade of the newcomer's overlarge rostrum forcing a deadly course through the waters teeming with sea-monsters. Beyond, he caught sight of the bastler freed from the sea-monsters' attentions and beating a limping retreat.

A confused din of frenetic footsteps thudded overhead, as if the crew there were dancing a wild jig. From fore to aft of the gun deck, crew and passengers alike contended with a great invasion of lagimopes-slippery creatures, small yet powerful, their backs vaned with tall fishlike fins. By the puffs of bothersalts farther back on the gun deck, Rossamund could spy Craumpalin proving his place in the fight, appearing to be creating a barrier of foul stinging fume to keep the sea-nickers away from weaker passengers. Caught in the thick, Fransitart lay about himself with a handspike like a younger man while Europe struck left and right almost perfunctorily with the bottom of her balled fist, bright arcs blinking, dropping a lagimope dead with every blow.

Rossamund took up the closest weapon to hand-a rope-handled pail-and swinging it in sweeping loops sought to drive any lagis before him from the deck and back out the gun ports whence they had come. At first the creatures proved unwilling to confront Rossamund directly, as if unsure upon whose side the young factotum fought. Yet, as he smote one after another, the remaining lagimopes soon settled him as an adversary and began to pay him especial attention. The more madly he swiped with the pail, the more madly did his foes beset him. Finally, the pail was stripped from his grasp and Rossamund fought with hands alone, wrestling back and forth across the deck, punching with fist and elbow, picking one little sea-nicker up bodily, grasping it hard through its slime to hurl it from a port. Strong, oddly jointed hands pawed and tore at him, tried to pin him down and pull away his sturdy proofing, but every time the young factotum found a way free.

In it all Europe was an indomitable force of scarlet and sparks. The lagimopes tried to drag her down from behind, but she would have none of this, and, twisting sharply, snatched the offending nadderers by their heads and filled them with death-dealing levin. Faced with the wrath of a fulgar at the height of her powers and a crew determined to resist, the shrunken swarm of fishy monsters quickly gave up and slithered back into the sea to disappear to wherever such creatures skulked.

Sooty with the dust of expelled potives, Craumpalin pushed through the passengers and crew silent in the shock of victory, the aging dispenser grinning to see his companions alive and well enough. "How good it does me to see thee lay about thyself so manful," he declared, grasping Rossamund enthusiastically by the shoulder.

Europe dusted a smudge from her sleeve. "Well, I cannot say I see why the navy prefers wits over we fulgars in such straits," she observed. "As my first sea-fight, that was not too troublesome at all."

"Aye, I suppose not," Fransitart grudgingly concurred, throwing the fulgar a dark look. "As thalasmaches can go…"

Stained and smeared in lagi oil, feeling badly bruised and half strangled, Rossamund gathered his hat-amazingly not cast a-sea in the fight-from the deck and simply leaned against the truck of a gun to catch his breath.

More rams arrived, chase guns thudding as they hounded the nadderers away south into deeper waters.The butcher's bill at nine wounded-the fellow seized overboard already retrieved, only slightly sizzled from the caustic waters-Master Right declared Europe the heldin of the hour. In a fit of gratitude he wrote up a recommendation promising to have his agents refund her the crossing fee for herself and her three worthy servants.

"Not all forces of the Empire are against us, it seems," Europe murmured to Rossamund as they stood at the helm watching the heavy drag-maulers speeding to the south as they chased the kraulschwimmen off.

A little shaky as she resumed her original course, the aged packet ram Widgeon trod her way to Brandenbrass.

The residence of Europe, the Branden Rose, fulgar teratologist and the Duchess-in-waiting of Naimes, was situated in the very midst of the great city of Brandenbrass. Cloche Arde it was called, its address-as Rossamund heard given to the takeny driver-Footling Inch, the Harrow Road, in the suburb of Ilex Mile. A pilot boat had brought the four travelers to the pier at the Fine Lady's Steps, where they had disembarked and passed, as they must by law, through the crowded files of the Arrivals and Admissions House. Europe's fame and station affording them a smoother passage among the long lines of newcomers and the frenzy of clerical rigor, they were soon in a hired takeny-coach progressing down long streets alive with a bustling mass Rossamund could scarce comprehend. It was a fair trot before they entered quiet, opulent suburbs where, set in their parklike gardens, each residence seemed like a thin vertical palace.